Somewhere Far From Here
by inori2
Summary: (CLOVER)With so many loose ends after the Four-leaf's death, Gingestu wonders wether it's wise to try to tie them up. But when Ran's health begins to slip, he may have found the motivation he needs. *Yaoi*
1. Darkness Slips Into Being

center  
iTears from the Sky/i  
  
Gingetsu looked out the window to the night, and the city below. It was raining so hard tonight...just like 3 years ago.  
  
Even the complication of life then seemed so simple now. Kazuhiko was still in the hospital. He tried to overdose on sleeping pills a month or so after Faerie Park exploaded and the four-leaf died. He was 2 months in a coma. They put him on some heavy stimulants, electro-shock therapy, counseling...it seemed nothing could pull him from whatever void the four-leaf's dead that pushed him into. General Ko checked in on him from time to time. What information he knew had all come from her.  
  
There was one thing he was fairly certain she didn't know. A week after Kazuhiko was admitted, there was a call from the hospital. He wasn't sure what it meant. They where asking something about a green leaf.  
  
  
iTo Be Born Again For Your Sake/i  
  
His mind fell on the Clover Project. The four-leaf. Three-leaf. Two-leaf. One-leaf.  
  
First the Three-leaf died. B, they called him. Then the one-leaf, Oruha. And then the four-leaf, Suu.  
  
He remembered Oruha. When Kazuhiko introduced them, he didn't bother to see if she remembered him. She was young when they met. And if she did remember, she made no comment either. She came into the project 2 years after him, though she didn't stay there long. His years in the Clover Project where something of a blur. Long white hallways and people with faces he couldn't recall. Always giving him pills or tedious jobs. Trying to test the reaches of whatever "magic" powers he might be blessed with.  
  
He did remember the day they met. He was 7, and sitting on a bench rubbing his sore wrist where his brand had been only recently burned into his skin. Oruha came up to him then. She was only 4, and the happiest and most beautiful thing he had ever seen in what he remembered of his life. She skipped up to him, and her thick black curls bounced around her shoulders.  
  
But when she was close enough for him to see her eyes, he saw she had the look of a Clover. They where never really children. They knew things and saw things that adults either didn't believe, or didn't want to believe.  
  
"Do you live here?" She asked him  
  
"Yes."  
  
"My mom and dad want me to live here too." She looked at him "But I don't think I want to. Do you like living here?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then why do you?"  
  
"I've always lived here." he said "This is where I belong."  
  
"I think I might belong here too," she said, turning her eyes to the ground.  
  
"Why? Did they tell you that?"  
  
"No, but I know something." she said "For as long as I can remember, I know exactly when I'll die."  
  
She said it matter-of-factly. He thought maybe she was too young to comprehend what she was saying. But if she was a Clover, it was more likely she hadn't let herself comprehend it, or didn't believe in that power. What he found most surprising was that he had never had a single premonition about his own death.  
  
"Does that make you sad?"  
  
"Sometimes, but mom and dad say I shouldn't believe it. But I know it's real."  
  
"How will you die?" Maybe it was a morbid question. But Clovers could ask things of each other. Their powers would differ greatly, he would learn. But they all shared a common understanding that they where not like the masses around them. That was enough to unite them.  
  
"Oh, I don't know. I just know the day. But it seems far away now anyway."  
  
Her parents called for her in the distance.  
  
"Ok, well I have to go now. Nice to meet you!" She ran off  
  
He would see her from time to time being pushed around the halls of the Project building. Then one day she disappeared. It wasn't until many years later that he would meet her.  
  
It was uncanny how much she hadn't changed. Still thick curly hair. Still luminous green eyes, still that unshakable energy. But still, perhaps more strongly beneath it all, that overwhelming and yet subtle feeling of a profound sadness. 


	2. Many Broken Birds

Broken Bird  
  
Ran drew a long, labored breath and Gingetsu's memory broke.  
  
He was beginning to slip faster and faster with each day. He was dying so fast on the inside that the outside couldn't even keep up anymore. But everywhere he showed the signs of life coming to an end.  
  
His skin was beginning to sink into the crevices of his cheeks and eyes. Everything about him was a dull ashen color. His eyes never fully opened. It was hard for him to just cross a room. He was always cold.   
  
And sometimes he'd just slip away...  
  
  
A Dying Bird Without a Cage  
  
"5 years! They said he'd last five years!"   
  
"Gingetsu, calm yourself. They said five years at best. You knew the 3 leaf could not live outside the cage." General Ko observed Gingetsu with an icy stare  
  
"He was supposed to have five years..." His eyes where pressed shut and his fist shook against his body.  
  
"Commander Gingetsu, your mission was to watch C until he died, to keep him safe from A. Your mission is nothing else. You should know better then to come to me with this"  
  
Gingetsu turned and left. He didn't know why he had come to her. He knew the 3 leaf couldn't live outside the cage. But he believed there was something she could yet do. He walked away full of anger and feeling very unfulfilled.  
  
  
Dark Clouds Cry a Sky Full of Tears  
  
Gingetsu was so still on the way home a few imaginative students wondered if he wasn't a hologram. The train lurched forward, stopped suddenly, swayed this way and that, he didn't move. He stood with his back slightly curled and his head aimed at the floor a few feet in fron of him.  
  
Ran was changing him. Had changed him. Until Ran started to...go, he could ignore it. But now, it was staring him in the face. It was so hard to just watch Ran die. To feel so powerless to help him. And now his outbirst and General Ko. He had to get control. He couldn't be emotional. He was military, and now he was...he cared about the Clover he was ordered to protect. He hadn't taken Ran in because he cared about him, General Ko had told him to.  
  
He stepped out of the train.  
  
That was it. It was General Ko. He is just a mission.  
  
'When he dies, my mission will be complete." He thought.  
  
He didn't know if he believe it or not. If he didn't think about it, he didn't need to know.  
  
But there was one thought that troubled him even more, and he would not let his mind wander there.  
  
  
A Bitter Caged Bird  
  
In a large empty room the sound of broken glass echoed off the expansive walls and pieces of mirror crashed to the floor.  
  
"Why couldn't you stay with me? I told you to stay, but you left and now you die like some pathetic old man."  
  
He swaggered like a drunk with a piece of broken mirror in one hand  
  
"I hope you die like a dog! You should have stayed, but left! You left the cage, but I am still here, I will live forever! I will be the strongest Clover! I always was! B was in the way, and I had you, then you LEFT me, but soon you'll die. You'll die unremembered like a dog in the gutter, and I will live forever as the strongest clover!"  
  
  
"NO! I miss you, C. I miss you-why didn't you stay with me, C!"  
  
He slashed at his arm with the mirror. His tongue slipped across his arm.  
  
"We taste the same, C. We are the same. I can bring you back and we can live forever in the cage..."  
  
He collapsed on the floor and a team of heavlily armed medics rushed in and picked him up.  
  
As the carried him to the infirmary  
  
"C...I miss you...I will get you back" 


End file.
